MARRIAGE MATERIAL Read online

  Her hands came up to catch his wrists, as if to pull his hands away. But she didn't. She only curled those small cold fingers around his arms and held on. And he kissed her, and she kissed him back—small, delicate, nibbling kisses that explored this place and then another, kisses that grew longer and warmer and moister.

  Before it could be too much, or he pushed farther than he wanted or she needed, Lance lifted his head. Still holding her face, he tasted his mouth with his tongue. "Mmm," he said, and was surprised at the husky sound of it.

  She pulled free, her color high. "I think it's time for you to go."

  "Yeah," he said. "So do I." He ran a hand through his hair, feeling how uncombed it was. Weariness made him unstable on his feet. God, he'd never been so tired! "Your car is fine now. You shouldn't have any problems."

  Tamara dug in a backpack and came up with his keys. She put them in his hand. "What was wrong with it?"

  There had actually been quite a lot wrong. The radiator had a crack and he'd had it replaced, but he knew she didn't have any money. He'd seen her panic this morning. One thing having money let him do was little things like this, without anybody ever having to know. It somehow made it better to have it in the first place, when so many people did not. "It wasn't much. The spark plug and some crossed wires. Joe got it fixed."

  "Joe Moran?"

  "Right. I paid him, so you can just pay me when you can. It was twenty-three dollars." He grinned. "Well, actually $23.09, if you want to be exact."

  Visible relief broke on her face. "Good. I have it right here." She counted the bills from her wallet, and with a grin, plucked a dime to put on top. "So we're square."

  He chuckled and pocketed the money. From the back of a chair, he took his jean jacket. "Don't forget, now. Cars don't like to be sworn at. You didn't swear at my darlin', now did you?"

  "How could anyone swear at that car? It runs like an animal or something." She gave him a sheepish smile.

  "Amazing, isn't she?" He put his jacket on. "I used to have one in high school, but a crazy woman trashed it when she got mad at me."

  "Trashed it? How?"

  "She took a hammer to the windows and the lights, and slit the tires." He frowned, remembering how wounded and furious he'd been, coming out of the school to find the car destroyed. "And as if that wasn't enough, she put holes all over the body with a screwdriver."

  "Good grief! What was she so mad about?" Tamara was surprised. Valerie's version of their ill-fated romance had not included these things.

  "I broke up with her." He shrugged. "That was about the fifth or sixth time I tried. She was crazy, that girl." He shook his head, remembering. "Crazy Valerie. I wonder what happened to her."

  A sudden cold infused the room. "She died," Tamara said abruptly.

  "What?"

  Tamara's eyes glittered with a cold light, and her posture was definitely not friendly now. "Valerie Jensen, right? She drove herself off a cliff."

  A pang touched him. "Poor kid. When did it happen?"

  "A little over four years ago."

  "That's really sad." Sobered, he remembered seeing her one Christmas. She'd seemed better then. Better enough that she drove him crazy in spite of himself. She'd always been a hot one.

  Tamara's chilly silence finally penetrated. He glanced over at her, and was surprised to see pure hatred on her face. "Hey, I didn't do it," he said, lightly. "I swear."

  "Nobody said you did." Her words were dry and weary. "She was my cousin, Lance. I loved her."

  He closed his eyes. "I'm sorry." He'd been planning to exit with an invitation to dinner, but maybe this wasn't exactly the best timing. "I guess I'll see you around," he said.

  "Good night."

  At the door, he hesitated, and looked back at her. Rigidly, she stood by the table, but her eyes were not quite so cold. "Thanks for supper," he said, and left, closing the door behind him.

  * * *

  Tamara sank wearily into the chair, her limbs trembling with the roller coaster of emotions she'd ridden tonight. Compassion, fear, desire, fondness and pure furious lust when he'd kissed her. Now a wild sense of betrayal and sorrow mixed with guilt.

  Crazy Valerie.

  What was she doing? From the moment he'd arrived in town, Tamara had been promising herself she'd find revenge. And what had she done instead? Laughed with him. Admired him. Wanted him.

  She buried her face in her arms. Oh, yes, she wanted him. The kiss lingered like poison on her lips. His hands, so big and callused and gentle, clung in ghostly imprints to her cheeks. He was excruciatingly tender, and yet the promise of wild, pure pleasure was there in every tiny brush of his lips, his hands, his exploring, curious fingers.

  Crazy Valerie.

  No wonder Valerie had been so smitten. Tamara had been in his presence four times, and her head was already crammed full of erotic imaginings. He gave the impression of sinfulness, combined with a surprising sweetness, and a promise of long, playful, hedonistic sex.

  What woman, with even one hormone left in her body, could resist that heady combination?

  Crazy Valerie.

  Tamara had no right to be thinking of him in this way. No right to betray her cousin's memory because she was lonely and Lance offered a respite from the daily grind.

  She lifted her head, narrowing her eyes. He was charming and sexy and plainly liked women of all kinds, and had decided Tamara might be a nice diversion.

  Valerie had likely thought he was a nice guy, too. Until she had got to know him. Until he broke her heart. Until he used her and left her—pregnant—sending Valerie over the edge.

  Firmly, Tamara slammed her books closed. She'd do well to remember what had happened to Valerie. Maybe revenge was out of the question, since Tamara couldn't trust herself in his presence. But she wouldn't fall prey to his charm, either.

  She'd just stay away from him.

  * * *

  Chapter 6

  « ^ »

  Friday night, Lance walked into the Wild Moose Inn. It was just past nine, and the evening was in full swing. A Bob Seger tune blasted from the jukebox, and there were couples moving on the small dance floor by the rest room.

  He'd arranged to meet his brothers here for a drink, coaxing even reclusive Tyler into an evening on the town. Lance paused just inside the door, looking for them. The place was packed full of men in their best Friday-night jeans, and women in glitzy blouses made to show off their attributes to best advantage.

  A fist of depression struck him, forcing the air from his lungs. Too much noise. Too many people. He hesitated, wondering if he ought to just turn around and go home. The apartment he'd taken was small and cheerless, without any personal touches thus far, but at least he wouldn't have to face anyone there.

  Then he caught sight of Tamara behind the bar. A nearly audible sense of relief moved through his limbs in a whoosh, and caught; Lance let himself feast on the sight of her.

  Somehow she managed to look both friendly and frazzled. Her dark hair was swept up into a loose knot that let wisps fall down her slim white neck. She moved efficiently, retrieving beers, taking money, laughing on time at a joke someone at the bar made.

  She saw him. He lifted his chin in greeting, a smile ready on his lips. If Tamara were here, maybe the night wouldn't be such a trial. But in response to him, her face hardened, grew cold and distant. She returned his greeting with a faint, tight smile and turned her attention back to the man at the counter.

  Lance frowned. In the two weeks since he'd last seen her, he'd thought of her often. More often, really, than was comfortable. Women didn't usually get under his skin, but Tamara seemed to have done just that. He couldn't stop remembering how comfortable she made him feel. How much at ease.

  The kiss had ruined it. He'd known even when he'd done it that it was wrong. Wrong for her, anyway. The memory of that long, chaste press of lips lingered in his memory like golden honey.

  Rubbing absently at the ache in his midsection, he spied his brothers
way back in a dark corner. Lance joined them. "Are we in hiding back here?"

  "Ty got here first," Jake said with a wry grin, shaking the tumbler of Scotch in his hands.

  Ty had braided his pale, long hair, and had even shaved the wheat-colored grizzling of beard from his jaw. "We can move if you want." He shrugged. "It makes no difference to me. I just didn't want to have to make conversation with anybody."

  Lance grinned. "You're a hermit, man."

  "I'm here." Ty lifted a bottle of Guinness stout and scanned the room as if it were filled with dragons. "Don't know why you guys couldn't come up to my place."

  "Tyler, let me tell you something." Jake slid close and put his arm around Ty. He gestured with one long-fingered hand. "You see that table over there? We call those women. They're nice and soft, and good for what ails you."

  "Not interested." Tyler said. His mouth tilted in a faint, derisive smile. "But I'm guessing the blonde wants you bad, Jakey. Such a surprise."

  Lance glanced over his shoulder to see who they were talking about. Not far away was a table of five or six women, not a one past twenty-five. A couple of them were very pretty, a couple more not bad. One was quite heavy, and looked hopeful. The blonde Tyler mentioned was about twenty-two, dressed in a city style with a sleek haircut that marked her as one of the rich kids that vacationed up here. She cocked a smile toward them.

  "Yeah, Jake, you got her."

  Jake lifted his glass in a toast, and the young woman returned the gesture. Jake said, "Excuse me, boys," and slid out of the booth.

  Lance watched him. Jake's dark hair hadn't been cut in a long time, and his jaw was shadowed with a three-day beard. He wore a pair of jeans and boots, like a rancher, and a simple chambray shirt. The girls at the table visibly straightened at his approach. When he bent over to whisper in the blonde's ear, she blushed and went to dance with him.

  "Damn," Tyler said. "He's a dog these days. I bet he's dated twenty-five different women since he hit town a month ago." Tyler lifted an eyebrow. "Thought that was your job."

  "I'm too damned tired. Dad left a mess at the company."

  "I'm not surprised. He was feeling pretty bad for about six months before he died. But you know Dad—doctors were for sissies."

  The waitress stopped by and Lance ordered a beer. He looked at Jake, dancing and flirtatiously moving closer to the woman in his arms. In the uneven light from overhead, the gaunt hollows under his eyes and cheekbones were highlighted. "I'm worried about Jake," Lance said. "I wonder if he ever sleeps."

  "Sure doesn't look like it." Tyler shook his head. "I used to hate all that military neatness, but it's too weird to see him like this."

  "Wonder what happened?"

  "Whatever it is, he's not talking." He fixed his pale gaze on Jake. "Must have been something big. You know he left the army with only four years to full retirement?"

  Lance nodded. "What about you? How are you doing?"

  Tyler shrugged. "Same old, same old. I just do what I do."

  "Still not dating at all?" Ty's wife had died three years before, and he had rarely come down out of the mountains since.

  "It's not that I made a vow or anything," Ty said, his eyes clouding. "It's just that I haven't met a woman I wanted to date."

  Lance knew better than to push. "I guess it just takes time. I bet you'll find somebody sooner or later." He grinned. "Of course, you have to actually talk to another woman every once in a while."

  "I don't really want another woman." Tyler shrugged. "I'm just not interested."

  The waitress brought the beer and Lance paid her. He glanced at the bar. Tamara worked steadfastly. Her blouse was a pretty green thing with a scoop neck, and he liked the way it made her look like a wistful romantic heroine. "You know the bartender?"

  "Tamara. She used to work at the bank when she was in high school." Ty narrowed his eyes. "That's not the woman you're set on, is it?"

  "What makes you think I'm set on anybody? I told you I've been too damned busy to do any kind of dating."

  "You never drink here. I figured there had to be a woman involved when you suggested we come here."

  Lance chuckled. "Well, maybe I did notice her a little bit."

  "Not a good choice, man. For one thing, she's Valerie's cousin."

  "I heard." He frowned. "How come nobody told me Valerie died, anyway?"

  Tyler rubbed his face. "Must have just been overlooked. That was when Kara was pregnant, and we were all worried about Jake cleaning up after Desert Storm, and Dad started living with his mistress. Pretty tough year all the way around."

  "I guess it was." He pursed his lips, watching Tamara turn out five margaritas, bam bam bam. Salt, ice, a whir in the blender, pour and garnish. Quick, clean, economy of motion. "She's not Valerie, though."

  "No, she's not," Ty agreed. "That's the whole point. She doesn't need some fast-talking rebel to sweep her off her feet and leave her in the dust. She needs somebody stable and steady who is going to be a husband for her and a father to that boy of hers."

  "Where is Cody's father, anyway?"

  Ty shrugged. "No idea. I don't think anyone knows." He gave Lance a level, cold look. "I mean it, Lance. She's not the kind of fast woman you like."

  Irritated, Lance stripped the beer bottle of its label. "Not everybody wants marriage every minute. Sometimes it's nice just to take a break and have a good time. It isn't like I go around pretending I'm something I'm not."

  "Maybe not. Just don't lead her on."

  Lance gave him a half grin. "Or what? You'll beat me up?"

  Tyler grinned back. "I'll take a hammer to your windshield."

  "Low blow." Lance shook his head and sighed. "I feel bad for Valerie, but that was one crazy woman."

  "She was just crazy in love with you," Tyler said, tongue in cheek. The ordinarily sober eyes glinted with humor. "I remember when she wrote 'Valerie Loves Lance' with lipstick on the school windows." He laughed. "Remember?"

  Lance winced. "Yep."

  "And when she came to the house in the middle of the night and sang outside your window."

  "Mmm-hmm."

  Jake sat down. "Who, Valerie?"

  Lance drank, wishing like hell this topic had never been started.

  "We were reminiscing," Ty said. "Remembering Valerie fondly."

  Jake laughed. "I remember the time she called the house every ten minutes, around the clock, for three days. And the time she showed up at that Halloween party?"

  Lance ignored them, feeling a flush move over his cheeks. For two years, he'd gone with Valerie. They'd broken up at least forty times, only to get back together a day or a week or a month later. To say it had been tempestuous was like saying an earthquake broke a few glasses.

  "C'mon," he finally protested. "I was sixteen and one raging hormone, and so was she."

  Ty snorted. "I remember when I caught you guys in the barn."

  "And there was the time in the locker room at school," Jake said, practically chortling.

  "Excuse me, gentlemen," Lance said, standing. He made his way to the jukebox, hoping his brothers would have finished their parade of humiliating moments by the time he got back. Punching in numbers blindly, he remembered the craziness with a sense of bewilderment. It seemed like another life.

  It was another life. He had, at times, honestly thought he was in love with Valerie. She was unbelievably beautiful, a cross between Vivien Leigh and Elizabeth Taylor, with a body like Marilyn Monroe.

  But mainly, it had been sex. Wild sex, crazy sex, the kind of drunken, rushing, dizzying sex only two hormonally crazed sixteen-year-olds could indulge.

  When he'd come home at Christmas a few years ago, he'd been lonely and out of sorts, and had run into Valerie in a bar. The same thing had happened all over again—three weeks of pure, mindless, practically nonstop sex.

  Hard to resist, but when her old tricks started, in little ways—her talk of marriage and children and settling down—Lance didn't wait for her to trash his car
. He left town and didn't look back.

  Lance pocketed the rest of his change and looked at Tamara, He guessed she might have reason to hold a grudge against him. He'd used Valerie. Maybe Tamara didn't understand that Valerie had used him right back. It had always been a two-way street.

  A man came into the bar and sat down on a barstool. Tamara gave him a sincere smile, laughing at some joke he made, and served up a Tecate with lime.

  Lance walked over to the man and clapped him on the back. "Hey, Alonzo! Let me buy you that drink." He shoved a five-dollar bill over the counter at Tamara.

  Alonzo Chacon looked up with a grin. "Hey, boss."

  Alonzo was a Mexican national who'd immigrated to Colorado two years before. Lance had just hired him to lead and teach a crew to make adobe bricks. Alonzo made them the old way, by hand and individually. With adobe in such high demand for the homes going up in the area, Lance knew he had a gold mine.

  Alonzo's dark eyes crinkled in the wreath of lines wrought by fifty-plus years in the sun, and his thick black mustache shone in the low light. "Gracias."

  Tamara took the money and made change without saying a word. Lance found himself watching her hungrily, the long long legs, the smooth sway of her hips and the faint, alluring movement of her breasts below the loose blouse. The green fabric made her eyes look like jade—deep and rich and mysterious.

  "Hi, Tamara," he said. "How's your car?"

  "Fine, thanks," she answered shortly, and turned away to wait on someone else.

  He grinned ruefully at Alonzo, whose dark eyes glittered in amusement. "She not so nice to you," he said with a wink. "But I see her watching you a minute ago. D'you make her mad?"

  "Afraid so," he admitted. "Trouble is, I can't quite figure out what I did." He gestured. "Come and join my brothers and I."

  Agreeable, Alonzo picked up his beer. "Lead the way."

  Lance peeled another five and left it on the bar as a tip, lifting one wicked brow at Alonzo, who nodded sagely.

  * * *

  Friday nights were always a zoo in the bar, which was why Tamara had to work them. No one had Friday nights off. Tonight, the restaurant next door was full of diners, and a flurry of waitresses moved in and out of the bar, calling out orders for margaritas and "Red Bulls," the house drink, made of vodka, cranberry juice, lemonade, and sweet and sour.